After winning the Ballon d’Or for the record 5th time, Messi said, “This Ballon d’Or means a lot more than I could have ever dreamed of as a child. It’s incredible that it’s my fifth, it’s much more than I ever dreamed of,” Messi had 41% of the vote Ronaldo getting 28% and Barca’s Neymar 8.0%.

Messi was the star player as Barcelona won the treble of Champions League, La Liga and Spanish Cup last season, before also adding the Club World Cup last month. Although he became the first ever player to win the award five times, Messi had said earlier that he would swap all those individual accolades for a World Cup success. “Team awards are more important than individual ones,” he said, before adding that the World Cup “is every player’s objective, it’s really the pinnacle”.